This week we embark onto the seas of multimedia. Over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at products and technologies that will make your struggles with graphics, audio and video a lot easier.
Multimedia is becoming increasingly important, which means you IT chaps are having to get more involved in figuring out how to drive multimedia authoring and editing products, as well as integrating them into corporate business processes.
So, let us start with sound recording and editing.
For recording we used to use Sonic Foundry’s Acid software, which let us not only record but also mix our recordings with sound effects and generally tweak multiple tracks. This was a couple of years ago, back when we started doing what today is called podcasts.
If you want to hear how we used and abused the old version of Acid, check out Gibbsblog for a link to the audio of Gibbs Out Loud Episode 41,750. Should you, by some strange chance, enjoy it and care to tell us, we might just do more episodes. Or not. It’s hard to know.
Be that as it may, the latest version of the software is Acid Pro 5 and is now published by Sony, which acquired Sonic Foundry’s audio product lines some time ago.
For multimedia development the latest version of Acid Pro is incredibly useful and effective yet fairly easy to come to grips with. The software runs under Windows 2000 or Windows XP, and you’ll need at least an 800MHz processor and a 1,024-by-768-pixel screen. If you plan to use the video feature, you’ll need a 1GHz processor or better.
The concept behind Acid is similar to a recording studio with multitrack capability. You load prerecorded sounds to each track or record into a track from your PC sound card. You then specify in a track’s timeline when and for how long the track is to play, as well as define the track’s volume and pan (that’s the balance between left and right) envelopes.
There are four types of tracks: loops, one-shots, beatmapped and Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). Loops are usually one to four measures in length and are usually used for repeating sounds, such as drums. One-shots are used for events that usually happen once, such as a cymbal crash. Beatmapped tracks are sounds with embedded beat data that ensures they can be synchronized with the overall beat of a piece. The final track is for MIDI file playback (Acid Pro also can route MIDI data to external MIDI-compatible devices).
To create a composition, you select media files in the Explorer window and drag them to tracks, then draw or paint them onto the timeline. (The difference between the two methods is that drawing applies to only one track and painting can be done to multiple tracks.) Note that we wrote “media” – Acid Pro also can load and render the audio and video from video files. This means you also can use the software for scoring movies (look out, Spielberg).
You also can add one or more effects, such as reverb, chop (that groovy stuttering effect), flanging (think Hendrix) and so on, to each track or apply any combination through the mixer to modify the final output.
The basics of Acid Pro are easy to master, but we haven’t even scratched the surface of what this software can do if you want to get sophisticated. It comes with a huge number of sample compositions, including those from Bill Laswell, which shows that you can create some really sophisticated music with this system. More than 1,000 sound loops are provided.
You can save your creations to a range of audio and video formats in stereo or 5.1 format, burn CDs and, rather oddly, export to Sony’s proprietary Net MD devices (MD stands for Mini Disc and is a format that could best be described as moribund).
There are all sorts of opportunities for using Acid Pro, such as creating custom background music for PowerPoint presentations or videos, or editing voiceovers for training materials. Acid Pro is very reasonably priced at $300.
Sound off to gearhead@gibbs.com or discuss in Gibbsblog.
